COMPANY NEWS

Siltstopper simplifies mobile water treatment

A new and compact piece of equipment that meets environmental requirements answers many of the issues around treating dirty water.

National Product Manager Mark Forbes says the addition of the Siltstopper clarifier to Coates Hire’s water treatment fleet delivers a low-cost, effective mobile silt separation unit for the construction, mining and environmental industries.

“More and more it’s becoming our customers’ responsibility for not only pumping water but also managing what is in the water,” he says, “managing contaminants such as suspended solids, pH adjustment or dissolved contaminants. We have solutions for both.”

Forbes says the Siltstopper is a benchmark product for dealing with suspended solids. “It’s manageable and focuses on the key elements of problems around civil construction with a solution that helps customers with issues on a job, for example, runoff or groundwater that occurs on subdivision or high-rise sites.”

The design uses a series of internal plates that allow particles to settle out when water is pumped through the unit. “Traditional processes involve sediment ponds, lagoons or tanks with a couple of baffles in them,” he says, “but metropolitan sites don’t have the luxury of space for constructing ponds and lagoons”.

“What this unit can do is deliver far more effective results with a smaller site footprint, saving labour costs, and it’s quicker and more efficient, due to the tank’s design.”

Coates Hire can also supply safe additives such as coagulants and flocculants that improves the process by binding particles in the suspension. The new product coupled with Coates Hires other water treatment offerings provides customers with the equipment they need to meet the discharged water quality requirements of environmental and state water authorities that have prescribed limits for factors like turbidity, pH and other contaminant levels.

Forbes says the addition of the Siltstopper is “exciting from the point of view that Coates Hire has a significant – in fact probably the largest – pump hire fleet in Australia and products like the Siltstopper tanks further ensure we can deliver to our customers a complete solution ” in delivering capability to move and manage water.

“We provide innovation and an understanding of the environmental considerations space, which is an area of growth demand from customers,” he explains.

“The Siltstopper is one in a suite of water treatment products that we offer, depending on what customer has to manage or treat.”